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A COVID-19 Vaccine May Soon Be Mandatory in Australia; and 146 Notre Dame Students Test Positive After Just 8 Days in Class.
People living in Australia may soon face mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations if Prime Minister Scott Morrison gets his way. This is thanks to the Federal Government securing an international deal to produce the vaccine locally if trials are successful.
Morrison says Australia would aim for a 95-percent vaccination and stressed that the vaccination would be mandatory if at all possible.
“I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make it,” said Morrison. “There are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds, but that should be the only basis.” For example, perhaps they’d take pause before giving the vaccine to people suffering from serious conditions like AFib strokes.
“We are talking about a pandemic that has destroyed the global economy and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands all around the world and over 430 Australians here,” he added.
However, the vaccine isn’t expected to be ready until next year at the earliest.
Related: Fauci Warns Covid-19 Vaccine ‘Unlikely’ to Achieve Herd Immunity
The University of Notre Dame is suspending in-person classes just eight days after the school’s fall semester began. The school’s closure happened as a result of 146 students and one staff member testing positive for the virus within that short time frame.
However, the suspension is only two weeks long. Other schools, such as Michigan State University, announced that undergrads should stay home for the rest of the fall “effective immediately.” University of Carolina-Chapel Hill made a similar announcement.
“The virus is a formidable foe,” said Notre Dame University President Father John Jenkins. “For the past week, it has been winning. Let us as the Fighting Irish join together to contain it.”
Most of the students who tested positive were seniors living off-campus. Contact tracing analysis showed that they contracted the virus during social gatherings.
It was on Monday that UNC-Chapel Hill became the first university in the US to abandon in-person classes. 130 students and five school employees tested positive within the first week of school.
“Many students, graduate workers, staff, some faculty members and even the local county health department warned that this was going to happen,” said Lamar Richards. Richards is a student chairperson on the Commission on Campus Equality and Student Equity at UNC.
Richards wrote in an open letter that the school administration’s “carelessness and dereliction of duty” caused the outbreaks.
Related: Students Throwing ‘Covid Parties’ to See Who Gets Infected First
